


Three

by shoelace-noose (princessbekker)



Category: Law & Order: SVU, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Fear, Kidnapping, M/M, Torture, forced drugging, semi-graphic sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 10:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessbekker/pseuds/shoelace-noose
Summary: Klaus has been abducted by a serial SVU is tracking, and Sonny now has three days to find him.





	1. Day One

When Olivia calls him into her office with no warning, Sonny knows something’s wrong. He’s been worried about this ever since the case came up. A serial popped up almost four weeks ago, and has kept the whole squad running ragged because of his strict timeline and lack of leads. 

Their perp abducts the significant other of cops, leaves behind a heart with the cop’s name in it written in the victim’s blood, and spends three days torturing and assaulting the victim. Those three days are peppered with Polaroids appearing at the cop’s precinct. And finally, the victim’s body appears near the site of abduction, usually in a dumpster. No physical evidence. No DNA. No rhyme or reason to the way the couples are chosen.

“Sonny, when was the last time you spoke to your boyfriend?”

His heart drops. She only calls him Sonny when something. 

“This morning. I accidentally woke Klaus up while I was getting dressed.”

When she reaches for the file folder on the corner of her desk, he thinks he’s going to throw up, without even having to see what he knows she’ll show him. It can’t be true. He doesn’t want it to be true. Already Klaus has been through so much. How is this fair? How does any loving God put him through this? Sonny would do anything not to see what Olivia is about to show him.

The wall is a warm, creamy color Klaus had picked out because he wanted the apartment to feel like a home, he had said. But the picture, of course, is not just of the wall. It’s of the sloppy heart with “CARISI” scrawled in the middle.

“One of the neighbors called the cops because they heard Klaus screaming. We didn’t get there in time, but we have a witness.”

“Did they get a good look at the perp’s face?”

“No. But we’ve got a size and build, an ethnicity, and a voice. She was on the line when she tried to confront him.”

Someone tried to help and it still wasn’t good enough. In his mind’s eye, Sonny can picture the terror in Klaus’ eyes as he was dragged from the apartment with a knife to his throat. It’s something at least that the perp has gotten bolder, doing things in crowded places during the day. 

“Your neighbor, Mrs. Thomas, is in the hospital because the perp slashed her with the knife, but she’ll be okay.”

“And Klaus?”

Sonny already knows the answer. They have seventy two hours to find him before he’s gone for good.

* * *

 

As Klaus rifles through his clothes for something to wear to work this afternoon, someone knocks on the door. Probably another solicitor, the kind who seem endless in the big city. Granted, it’s a small price to pay for a life of his own with someone who loves him unconditionally, but they annoy him to no end. 

“We don’t want any,” he yells over his shoulder, before adding, “unless it’s weed!”

Whoever it is knocks again and he rolls his eyes. They won’t go away unless he personally tells them to fuck off. If they wanna bother him, he’s not getting dressed first and they can deal with his hot pink briefs and blanket cape, thank you very much. As he approaches the door, another knock fills the apartment.

“I’m coming, hold on.”

He doesn’t bother looking through the peephole, something Sonny would be annoyed by if he was here because “New York is full of bad people.” In truth, Klaus thinks he’s just paranoid because of his job, hunting down the worst of the worst. From time to time, Klaus helps out by talking to victims who didn’t make it, if only to point them in the right direction because they can’t use him for real evidence.

After that, it all happens so fast. 

Whoever’s on the other side of the door shoves their way into the apartment and the next thing Klaus knows he’s on the floor with his wrists pinned at either side of his head, staring up into a plastic mask like they sell around Halloween. Just like the other duo of assholes who wouldn’t let him see their faces while they used Klaus as bait for his brother. Not that anyone noticed. Would Sonny notice if he’s gone?

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a taken man. If you’re looking to get laid, I can direct you to some nice clubs nearby-”

His sentence gets interrupted by a heavy fist slamming against his face, filling his mouth with blood as his teeth scrape his cheek. The last time this happened had to have been sparring with Luther what feels like a million years ago. He starts actually trying to to get away, which only earns the attacker dragging him to the wall and bashing his head against it hard. 

“That wasn’t nice-”

It happens again, hard enough to make Klaus too dizzy to come up with a snarky response. He can’t really resist as his attacker takes one of his arms and digs in the kind of pocket knife that Sonny says are too long to legally carry on you. This is illegal. This is a crime, and not just the knife, and Klaus should probably do something about it but his head hurts and his arm is sticky with blood and wouldn’t it be so nice to shut his eyes for a couple of minutes?


	2. Night One

Klaus’ head hurts when he wakes up. He thinks he might be concussed, or just really hungover. No, not hungover, he’s been sober for a while. Long enough that Sonny had baked him a cake and kissed him while he sat on the counter, eating frosting, because of course Sonny insisted they should celebrate a year of sobriety for the first time since Klaus started getting high, because he was proud of him. Come to think of it, Sonny is the only person who’s ever said they were proud of him.

“Aw, beautiful, good to see you’re awake.”

He squints his eyes at the figure in front of him until it comes into focus. Same creepy mask, which he thinks is a good sign, because if this guy wanted to kill him then he wouldn’t bother hiding his face. Or at least, he probably wouldn’t.

“Lucky you,” Klaus answers.

There are a lot of the dead in this room, he notices. Mostly around his own age, covered in burns and scrapes and bruises, with marks on their neck like they were choked. None of them are talking to him yet, but they all seem worried as well as wary of the man in the mask. If these are previous victims, then Klaus is definitely fucked.

He takes some notice of his surroundings as his brain comes back online, including the blood stains on the walls, the rope chafing his bare skin because he never even got dressed this morning, and an old wooden table housing a polaroid and a bunch of metal looking things he has no interest in acquainting himself with, thank you very much.

“You know, my boyfriend is like, a super good detective, so I bet he’s got a lot of people looking for me right now. It might be way easier for all of us if you just let me go, and we can pretend this never happened.”

The man comes closer, close enough to stroke Klaus’ cheek with a gloved hand. Gross. He turns his head to try and bite it, only to miss and get slapped upside the head for his troubles. Not a big deal, he’s been through far worse and gotten off on it.

“Detective Carisi isn’t going to find you,” the man says softly. Klaus can’t look away from his mask, which up close, seems to have a splatter of dried blood on the chin of it. “He’ll find some pretty pictures we’ll take for him, and then he’ll find your body. How does that sound?”

“Not my idea of a good time, sorry, but I do look pretty in a skirt if you wanna provide something. I’m not ashamed or anything- body positivity and shit- but it’s kinda cold in just my tighty whities. Pinkies, I guess.”

“You won’t be wearing them for long, I promise.”

Before Klaus can ask what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, the man heads over to the table and picks up the polaroid camera, snapping a photo which momentarily blinds Klaus with the flash. Well, whatever floats his boat. But then, while he’s over there, he grabs something which looks like a corkscrew and approaches with it. Rusty, or stained, or both. He tries to lean back, put some space between himself and the device, but only succeeds in the chair he’s tied to digging painfully into his back.

“Listen, if pain is your thing, that’s cool, me too. But really, you oughta keep that stuff clean. Don’t want any infections, it gets nasty quick-”

“You don’t have to worry about any infections. All you have to do, beautiful, is not make a fuss while I do my job, hmm?”

More than anything, Klaus wishes he was high right now. That thought hasn’t crossed his mind in a while, but now is as good a time as any to think about relapse. After all, he has been kidnapped by some weird psycho who has a fucking corkscrew in his hand. He should get a pass for now.

He stays stoic as the corkscrew twists into his bicep, right over his tattoo from his time in the war, and he uses the pain to remind himself not to be visibly upset about the destroyed tattoo. That would just make things worse. So he focuses on the pain, focuses on its familiarity, focuses on how easy it is to turn it into pleasure the way he learned to so long ago. Lets it wash over him, consume him, become a part of him. It’s not as easy as it used to be. He’s out of practice because Sonny has always treated him so well.

“Not going to cry for me?”

“I told you pain was kinda my thing. You’re going to have to try a little harder. I mean, I got kidnapped once before, by these two assholes, I think. They choked and beat the shit out of me and it didn’t work. I feel bad for you man, really, because I’m not gonna break down.”

The corkscrew falls to the floor, but before Klaus can feel the relief, those gloved hands  start sliding over Klaus’ stomach. 

“You will. They always do.”

* * *

 

Over and over, Sonny keeps telling himself that they’re going to find Klaus. They have more information than they did before, including a witness, and Klaus is smart, in addition to having Sgt. Dodds’ ghost with him. A couple of times, Sonny has gotten to sit there, and listen to Klaus tell him what Mike wants to say, and for just a moment the grief doesn’t eat at him. Mike could help him survive this.

But it’s a waiting game right now, because it’s almost six pm and the first set of polaroids are always delivered around then. As much as Sonny craves the proof that Klaus is still alive, he doesn’t know if he can handle seeing what he knows to only be the beginning stages of torment. 

“We’re going to get to him in time, Dominick,” Rollins says as she sets a coffee down on the corner of his desk. “We got Mrs. Thomas’ description and put it through the database, and we’ve got a couple potential matches, alright? We’re gonna check out the addresses on file, see if any of them might be our perp.”

“If we scare him, he might panic and kill Klaus.”

Amanda sits on the edge of the desk and gives him a half hearted smile. “I don’t know if this helps, but he’s not satisfied unless he gets through all his torture, so he won’t be killing him until the end of day three. We’re still on day one.”

As a response comes to the tip of Sonny’s tongue, a uni comes up with a crisp envelope in his hand.

“For Detective Carisi.”

Everyone gathers around him as he puts on a pair of gloves, despite knowing there’s no evidence to contaminate, and peels it open. As expected, three polaroids come out, the usual. In the first, Klaus is clearly unconscious, with blood matted in his hair and a bruise on his cheekbone, but otherwise unharmed. He’s already down to his underwear, unlike previous victims who were still fully clothed the first day, but given the time of the abduction it’s possible that’s all Klaus was wearing at the time. In the second, he’s awake with no new injuries, thank God. His eyes are clear and alert despite the apparent head injury, which has to be a good sign. Sonny wants it to be a good sign. Then the third. Klaus appears to be unconscious again, with blood on one of his arms and all over his chest. He’s been divested of his underwear. 

It takes everything Sonny has not to throw up. 

“He’s escalating,” Olivia says. “Pushing up his timeline, possibly because of the witness. Rollins, start checking out the suspects because we don’t know how much time we have left. Fin, help her.”

“What about me, Lieu?”

She sighs at him. “I think you should get some rest, Sonny. I know you can’t go home, but we can put you up in a hotel. It’s best that you don’t get too caught up in this.”

“You know I can’t do that. I can’t rest until I know he’s safe.”


	3. Day Two

There’s a new envelope waiting on Sonny’s desk when he comes in on the morning of the second day. If it follows normal patterns, the first will be more torture, the second will be the beginning of the assault, the third will be the aftermath. But it seems Klaus has already been assaulted before the end of the first day, so Sonny doesn’t know what he’s going to see, and the thought terrifies him.

“It’s a felony to open your mail, so we had to wait,” Amanda says. She’s already made him a coffee, even though she was here all night checking out the suspect pool that the database came back. Apparently nothing. “But if you open it and don’t want to look-”

“I have to see them.”

Just like the evening before, everyone crowds around him as he pulls out the three new polaroids. Klaus crying and mid-scream, all his muscles tense. Then a close up of Klaus’ face, mouth open and his lips swollen, pure terror in his eyes. In the last one, Klaus isn’t even tied up, just curled up on his side on the floor. That’s never happened before. 

Somehow, that isn’t the part of the polaroid that Sonny focuses on. It’s the blood thumbprint on the glossy surface. Immediately Sonny hands it off to the lab tech to run for a match, and then buries his face in his hands. The timeline is off, and the serial has broken the pattern, which puts Klaus in much more danger. There’s no knowing how much time they have left to find him, or what state he’ll be in if they do.

There are two possible explanations, as far as Sonny can think, for why the sudden change. Number one, it could be Klaus’ gift. If he’s talking to past victims, using them to try and trip up the serial, it could aggravate him and lead to him escalating, which is why the disruption in pattern. If this is the case, Klaus could be dead any minute. On the other hand, it could be Klaus’ certain proclivities. For as long as Sonny has known him, Klaus has thrived on pain, gets off on it, even. He enjoys being hurt to an extent. Once, he had shared a story of when he was held hostage as bait for one of his brothers, that his captor had choked him and given up because of his body’s atypical reaction. The only way they could get to him was withholding his drugs. This serial, this serial who gets off on people’s suffering, would be frustrated at a lack of desired response at the torture he used on other victims. So he’d go faster. Bad for Klaus, but altogether more likely that he’ll be kept for a full three days.

Both possibilities give Sonny a headache. Why the pattern changed isn’t as important as finding Klaus as soon as possible, something with which everyone agrees as Olivia orders the lab to rush those prints an get them back to her as soon as possible. It could be the key to finding the perp before it’s too late.

“This is good news, Carisi,” Fin tells him. Everyone keeps telling him things like that. “He’s still alive, and we’ve got another solid lead. We’re gonna get to him in time.”

“You don’t know that.”

* * *

 

In his life, Klaus has had some rough nights. Rough is a mild term, but still. He’s been locked in the mausoleum. He’s had drug fueled hazes in back alleys. He’s done unspeakable things in motel rooms to score a hit. He’s been woken up to shoot at innocent people. He’s had nightmares that don’t fade in the daylight. So for him to call any night a bad one, the bar is fairly high.

Last night was one of the worst nights of his life.

Once his captor figured out how to get to him, it wouldn’t stop. Over and over again, unable to move with sour breath in his face and cruel finger tips digging into his shoulders. A feeling he couldn’t escape. No matter how much he screamed and begged for it to be over, it never was. By the time he was even allowed a break, it had to be well past midnight.

It must be morning when he wakes up again, so thirsty he doubts he could speak if he wanted to. He thinks he would kill for a cool glass of water, even though most days Sonny has to remind him, because for years Klaus would only drink booze and he chugged it like his life depended on it.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

He just stares up at his captor. Somehow, it’s easier than looking at the handful of past victims lingering around him, watching, waiting. They haven’t spoken to him yet. He isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but he doesn’t care much when all he can think about is the fact that Sonny hasn’t come to save him. Whenever Klaus has nightmares, Sonny tells him they aren’t real, and promises he will always rescue him, no matter what. But where is he now? Has he even noticed Klaus is missing, or does he barely notice, just like all of his siblings?

His eyes land on a bottle in the man’s hand, clear and tall with a thin neck. Vodka. Klaus isn’t sure whether he’s afraid of it or excited at the possibility of killing his sobriety right here and now. Of course all of this would be easier if he was drunk or high, lost in the haze to eliminate the ache in his body from torture.

“Your thirty day sobriety chip was in Detective Carisi’s desk.”

It’s been far longer than that, although it isn’t important. He’s clean, and he’s worked so fucking hard to get here, done every single thing he could to overcome the trauma and fears that shoved him here. But Klaus is tired, and thirsty, and he’s had a shitty night, and Sonny hasn’t come to help him. Would it be so bad, even if he was given the choice?

“Open your mouth.”

And Klaus does. He opens his mouth and lets his captor pour in so much liquor that he chokes on it as he struggles to drink. The taste hasn’t been missed, but the warmth, the burn flooding his stomach and chest is a familiar pain he hadn’t realized how much he desired until right now. Drink, drink, drink, as much as he can so that he forgets the abandonment and the crawling sensation beneath his skin.

Before he knows it, everything is a warm and fuzzy haze. The ropes around him disappear. He finds himself on the ground, vision sixteen kinds of screwed up, but liberated of the dead at least. Small miracles, small miracles. Klaus doesn’t realize he’s crying until the flash of the polaroid coming for him the sixth time reflects off of his tears.

* * *

 

“We’ve got something.”

Sonny’s heart is beating out of his chest as he stands in the lab beside Olivia. The fingerprint has been pulled up on a monitor next to a mugshot, It matches the neighbor’s description save for what appears to have been a significant loss of weight since the mugshot was taken. That explains why he didn’t pop up the first time. They have a name and a current address, still on parole from a recent release, some three or four months prior, after being convicted of false imprisonment, assault, and rape in the first degree.

Then, in the blowup of the polaroids, is a detail Sonny hadn’t noticed before, but Olivia thought he should know. In the third one, there’s an empty bottle of vodka in the corner of the frame. Their serial forced Klaus to relapse, which seems to be the cruelest part of it all. Sonny knows how hard he worked to get to this point.

“Fin and Rollins are already en route with backup. The address is a studio apartment, so we don’t think he’s keeping Klaus there, but it might help us find our perp, or someone who knows where he would go.”

“We’re due for the next set of photos in six hours. We have thirty hours before Klaus’ body is dumped,” Sonny says. “If we’re lucky. The timeline is…”

“Messy, I know, but don’t give up hope.”

All Sonny can think about is the possibility of burying the body of another person he loves. Losing so much all over again. He wouldn’t be able to do it.


	4. Night Two

Sonny does not receive any new polaroids at six tonight. When the hour comes and goes, no new pictures, he completely breaks down. Anything would have been better than nothing, because nothing could very well mean that it’s too late.

“Breathe, Sonny, you need to breathe. He’s going to be okay.”

He wants to scream that no one can know that, but instead he clenches his fists hard enough for his nails to dig into his palms. It hurts. He deserves it for not protecting Klaus, and what hurts even more is that he knows him well enough that he’s willing to bet his failure to rescue him so far is read as abandonment. That’s one of Klaus’ biggest fears, is being abandoned. 

Fin and Rollins and probably a million unis are out trying to find him right now. They found the perp’s apartment, which included records of past targets, a list of future, and in the fridge, a collection of blood filled vials labeled by name. The newest one said “Klaus” on it. A test confirmed matches to every single victim so far, including the most important. But exactly as suspected, Klaus wasn’t in the apartment and there was no indication he, or any previous victims, had ever been.

Supposedly there are a couple places the perp might’ve gone, but if the lack of news is any indication, no luck so far. No news is the worst news. More than anything, Sonny wishes he was out there helping, doing something besides sitting here at his desk and trying not to have a meltdown over how fucked up this whole situation is.

“Is there anything I can do?” Olivia asks. “Something to eat, or- or someone to talk to?”

“I just want him back.”

Before Olivia spouts out something she probably means to be comforting, a uniformed officer comes up to them both with a forlorn expression on his face and says, “Patrol found a body. White male, about six feet, skinny, dark curly hair. No report yet, but they’re saying the body’s in bad shape.”

Sonny’s heart stops. No. No, no, it can’t be him. Please, God, have mercy and don’t let it be him. He’s on his feet in an instant, and he can’t breathe, and all he can think about is how scared Klaus must've been when he died. Only a day earlier Sonny woke up beside him, kissed his forehead and thought about how lucky he is to have him. After Mike he never thought he would find love again, but then Klaus entered his life. Broken, and tired, but there. Willing to listen. Sonny remembers driving him to meetings all the time because Klaus was terrified of public transport, a fear the two of them are still working on. Were. 

Now he's going to have to identify Klaus’ body and arrange for cremation and put all of his things in a box so he won't have to look at them. Bury and destroy all the memories so they don’t hurt, just like he did when Mike died, because it’s just easier to avoid everything instead of actually dealing with it.

* * *

 

Sobriety comes the way the sun rises. Slow and disruptive. Klaus isn’t sure if he’s grateful or disappointed that he’s not drunk anymore, because as hard as he’s worked to get here, it’s easier to endure the torture and avoid his powers when he can barely think. Part of that might be the lingering effects of the concussion. Or he thinks it’s a concussion. Hard to tell, a lot has happened since he was taken here and lost track of time. It may have been a day, may have been a year. He’s trapped is all that’s important, and Sonny hasn’t come to help him.

“Look at how pretty you are.”

He can barely raise his head, just stares into his captor’s mask to avoid looking at the dead surrounding him. Funny, considering he’s sure this mask will haunt his nightmares above all else on the off chance he gets out of here alive. Once again, a gloved hand cups his face, too gently. Sonny holds Klaus’ face that way before he kisses him. He doesn’t have the energy to turn away. 

“We’re gonna take some more nice pictures of you for Detective Carisi. I bet he’s devastated right now, driving himself crazy looking for you. But he won’t find you, beautiful.”

Klaus can’t help laughing a little, a choked and painful sound. “He’s not looking for me. He gave up like everyone else does. So you know, if that’s a boner killer for you, I get it.”

For whatever reason, his words flip a switch. The next thing he knows, his legs are kicked apart and there’s a hand on his throat and although he knows what happens next, he doesn’t react. There’s no reason to, because he’s learned it doesn’t matter if he says no. His eyes stare into the dead mesh over the eyeholes of the mask.

“Don’t just fucking lay there!”

His captor slaps him, and still Klaus still doesn’t react. There’s no point.


	5. Late Night Two

The whole ride, Sonny is quiet in the passenger seat. Olivia had wanted him to wait, to identify the body at the station, but he can’t bear not knowing. He needs to prove to himself that the body isn’t Klaus, that there’s still hope however slim. Klaus can’t be dead.

He stares out the window as he waits, watching the sidewalks smear by and people go on their merry way because they aren’t terrified for the safety of their loved ones. They will never have to stare into cold, dull, lifeless green eyes, not once, but twice. He’s going to throw up if he doesn’t calm down. Easier said than done. There’s a thirty pound weight on his chest, forcing his lungs flatter and flatter, daring his heart to keep trying to beat under the circumstances.

Olivia’s phone rings.

“It’s Rollins,” she tells him, and presses the speaker button on the phone before dropping it into the cupholder. “Find anything?”

“We found our guy, and his torture chamber. ESU is on their way, but we didn’t find the vic.”

“Patrol called in a body that matches Klaus’ description not to long ago, Carisi and I are on our way to find out if it’s…”

“Can he hear me?”

Sonny swallows hard. “Yeah, Rollins, I can hear you.”

“Okay. Question, was- was Klaus ever in the military? Or knew someone who died in combat?”

“Yeah, actually. He had this ex who served, didn’t like to talk about him much.” He doesn’t try to explain that Klaus was there too, that he and his ex were in Vietnam. “But he wore the dog tags everywhere, never took ‘em off. When he had nightmares, or got stressed out, he’d run his fingers over them.”

There’s a long pause Sonny doesn’t want to hear the end of. 

“Okay. Thank you. Liv, Fin and I are on our way back with the perp, we’ll be there when you’re ready.”

Amanda and Olivia say their goodbyes, and Sonny is left wondering why she asked. What she found which prompted that question. He chooses to stop thinking about is as he lets his head fall against the cool window once again. They have the man who’s responsible, but it’s too late. Far too late.

Never again will he see Klaus’ smile, not the large and sometimes garish one he shows the world, not the small one he has when Sonny tells him he’s worth the world. Never again will he feel his messy curls as they calm each other down after a long day. Never again will he wake up to a perpetually too warm body curled against his own. 

Tears drip down his face the way blood dripped down Klaus’ chest in the polaroids. He almost thought it wouldn’t end this way, that by some miracle, he could have saved him in time. All he did was give himself false hope, which arguably makes this so much worse as the lieutenant’s car rolls to a stop on a street busy with party lights and uniformed officers. Yellow tape blocks off a dirty alleyway. From this vantage point, Sonny can’t see the body.

It has to be easier if he just refers to what’s left of Klaus as the body. That way Sonny can imagine some semblance of distance so it won’t hurt as much when he has to confirm what everyone already knows. Or maybe it’s worse, to turn him into just another number, the same way Reginald Hargreeves did for so so long.

Olivia steadies him as the duck under the police tape, stays silent as they approach. Already the body has been covered by a sheet, but the coroners have yet to arrive and take away the remains. Sonny doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to know, but he has to look. He has no choice. He takes Olivia’s offered hand and squeezes tight as one of the officers peels back the sheet.

The sight is horrific.

Pale skin marked with pain, mottled bruises gone dark with the lack of fresh circulation to keep them rosy pink and deep purple blues like storm clouds. On the thighs, the hips, the neck. Rope burn on the wrists, ankles, and chest. Deep cuts littered among scraped with dry blood crusted angry black, drips frozen in time from some of them. Curly hair matted with some of it from what must’ve been a nasty head injury. The face is beaten beyond recognition, swollen and bloated and bloodied and destroyed. 

Sonny can’t control the sobs, heavy and drilling down to his core. He falls to his knees. The gravel digs into them painfully, might as well be broken glass, but he doesn’t give a shit about that right now. Olivia rubs his back, whispers half-heard consolations, tells him to breathe. But she doesn’t understand.

“No, no, no,” he repeats, rubbing at his eyes desperately. “It’s- it’s not him. That’s not my Klaus.”

Olivia says something indistinct and next thing Sonny knows, she’s guiding him away from the scene so he can get some fresh air into his lungs and calm himself because he’s fairly sure he’s hyperventilating. That body wasn’t Klaus. It wasn’t him. But Klaus wasn’t where the serial and torture chamber were, either. He’s gone. 

The last time Klaus had disappeared with no warning, Sonny sat awake for days and prayed for his safety until finally, finally, Klaus popped up in a rehab center somewhere after he overdosed. Because Sonny wasn’t his emergency contact at the time, he didn’t know until he got a call from the center’s patient phone and heard Klaus apologizing over and over and begging him not to be mad.

“We should check rehab centers,” he mumbles. “Last time…”

“People are searching for his body now, Sonny. It’s probably too late, I’m sorry.”

He wants to argue it isn’t, because this body wasn’t Klaus, but it’s futile when he’s already exhausted and cried out. Klaus has to be here somewhere. He’s a fighter, always has been. He’s survived through things that would crack most people’s psyche like an egg, and has managed to come out stronger on the other side. This false alarm was a sign. It must’ve been.


	6. Day Three

“Where is he?”

The man stares at Fin, his face schooled into a cool mask that gives nothing away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your latest victim, Klaus Hargreeves.” Fin opens the folder on the table in front of him, revealing a picture Sonny provided of Klaus. In the photo, Klaus looks soft, happy. His hair is messy, but there’s no makeup on his cheeks and he has a slight smile, the kind Fin knows Sonny gets too when he thinks about him. “Blood in your little torture room was a match. And we found these.” Next Fin pulls a little evidence bag from his coat, containing a blood stained set of dog tags. “According to his boyfriend, Klaus hasn’t taken these off since they met years ago.”

“Detective Carisi?”

Now they’re getting somewhere. The perp slipped. “Yeah, Detective Carisi. He’d really like to be able to say goodbye to Klaus.”

“I imagine it’s too late for that.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it would be nice to give him some closure, wouldn’t it?”

On the other side of the two way glass, Fin knows Carisi is watching, probably bouncing on the balls of his feet and playing with his rosary as he tries to keep calm. This has to be agonizing for him. Of course, Fin has always felt bad for the families who go through this, but it’s entirely different when the person suffering is someone he knows so well, and the victim is someone who drew a smile from Carisi for the first time in a very, very long time.

The sleazy public defender leans in to whisper something in his client’s ear, and now he’s the one in control of this, smug as he crosses his arms over his chest. “My client may have a theory as to where Mr. Hargreeves is.”

“And let me guess, he wants something.”

“If you call over your DA to talk arrangements, my client may share his theory.”

Someone knocks on the glass, and Fin knows it’s Liv telling him to come out so they can call Barba. Whatever happens, they need to at least find a body so Carisi gets the chance to properly grieve, get closure on whatever’s happened. The body won’t be pretty, but everyone knows Carisi needs to see it.

He takes the tags with him, but leaves the photo when he exits. Liv is waiting for him, Barba beside her with a cup of coffee definitely not from the precinct, and Carisi is sitting on the floor with his face in his hands, Rollins speaking to him softly to calm him down. 

“They want a deal in exchange for telling us where Klaus is,” Fin says, as if they all weren’t listening in.

Barba goes in, Liv with him, and Fin is left watching Carisi completely break down.

* * *

 

Klaus can’t really walk. Or sit up. His vision is blurry and the ground feels like it’s made of knives against his bare skin, digging in more scrapes and bruises than he already had, as if they weren’t enough already. His head is still pounding. He’s pretty sure he does actually have a concussion, because he can’t keep his balance to stay on his feet. All he can do is crawl awkwardly on his hands and knees, shivering from the cold temperature. It’s always so fucking cold in New York, even when he’s not naked as the day he was born and missing quite a lot of blood.

Everything aches. He manages to lean his head against some kind of wall and curl up in an effort to protect himself when he feels so violated by what this piece of shit did to him. He can’t escape the sight of that mask burning against his eyelids. Staring him down as he forced Klaus to do things, things he hasn’t been able to do without a panic attack since he got sober and stopped doing anything he could for drugs. 

All he wants is to go home. Drink tea with Sonny while they flip through stupid homemaker catalogues and cut things out to put on their little future board above the dining room table. Cutouts of furniture, of bright painted walls with white trim, of marble counters, of bay windows and backyards and rocking chairs and recipes. Their future home somewhere away from the drama of the city. Sonny’s been waiting to retire for ages, he’s said, and has promised that they’ll have their own home somewhere peaceful soon.

Why isn’t he allowed to have a future? He’s worked so Goddamn hard and still he’s going to die alone the way his siblings always told him when he was in the midst of his drug habit. Except there is no peace, no painlessness from veins filled with slow deaths. He hurts, deep and full, with no escape. He wants it gone. Wants to just die already.

Voices edge in at his conscience and he can’t take it. Klaus covers his ears. “Leave me alone! Please, please, just leave me alone! I can’t help any of you!” He can’t take the ghosts anymore, the way they screamed at him for help as he was held down and abused by their murderer. He might as well be a corpse anyways, already halfway there. Since the day he was born, Klaus has had one foot in the grave. He’s just too tired.

* * *

 

Sonny’s hands are shaking. He hasn’t spoken a word since they left the station. It’s official. He’s no longer hoping that the body he finds won’t be Klaus, because they know it will be. This is what the perp told them. Somewhere down this street, in one of the narrow spaces between buildings, is the final resting place of Klaus’ body. It will not be the same one Sonny held for the last time. Everyone told him it would be best if he waited at the precinct, but he can’t bear not being here because he owes it to Klaus, at the very least, to see him before even more strangers touch him to bring him to a cold clinical morgue. Klaus has always hated being touched by people he doesn’t know.

His heart pounds against his ribs as he checks down an alleyway, sifting through garbage bags and beer bottles. While there are some suspicious stains, Klaus isn’t here. Although he doesn’t really want to find his body and completely lose hope, he won’t forgive himself if he doesn’t. In his frustration, he kicks the wall hard enough to leave an ache in his foot.

He searches and searches and searches, checks every single possible place on the street Klaus could be. Everyone does. They branch out some, but still, nothing. No Klaus. Sonny will never be able to say goodbye.


	7. Night Three

When he gets the phone call, Sonny is on his way back to the hotel he’s been staying at, since the home he shared with Klaus is still a crime scene. He doesn’t think he can ever go back there anyways. Olivia ordered him to go get some rest, gave him the next couple days off and possibly more. Whatever he needs to grieve, she said. 

“Carisi,” he answers, not bothering to look at the caller ID. Hopefully it’s not his family or one of the unis trying to throw bullshit condolences at him. 

“Hey, it’s Benson. I know you need time to process everything, but apparently there’s a John Doe at Mercy Hospital who asked for ‘Tective Chrissy from SVU’ and was very adamant about it. We think he meant Carisi. Would you be willing to meet Rollins there?”

He nods before realizing she can’t see him, and verbally confirms. If he couldn’t help Klaus, he has to try and help someone else in hopes the gnawing sensation in his chest will ease in the slightest. If he told anyone about this, they’d probably send him to a grief counselor, and while he knows it’s good for him, he doesn’t want some stranger to tell him how to cope with another painful loss. It didn’t help the first time. It won’t help now.

Sonny pulls over, plugs the address into his GPS, and changes his route from the cheap hotel he hasn’t even really been staying at to the hospital. For a long, quiet drive, he lets his mind fall blank and the tears to roll down his face now that no one is around to try and comfort him. Some things just need to be felt alone.

If he’s honest, he doesn’t really remember most of the drive. He moves on autopilot, staring out the windshield but not seeing. It’s a miracle he manages to get there safely, park his vehicle, and actually find his way to the emergency department, where Amanda is waiting for him in the lobby. 

“How’re you doing, Carisi?”

“Fine.”

He doesn’t want to go through this conversation and listen to her pity. The two of them approach the desk and show their badges, saying they’re here to see the John Doe patient. An exhausted nurse with curly hair leads them back, passing through the craziness that has overtaken the ER for the night. The waiting room was a zoo, and the beds are only mildly calmer, but it makes a good distraction. Sonny can exist here, and not in his pain.

“He’s unfortunately not awake,” the nurse tells them. “He’s been in and out since he got here, and the only things he’s said are asking for the police and morphine. You’re more than welcome to stick around and wait for him to wake up.”

They reach a bed with curtains drawn around it, opaque ones which the nurse parts slightly for the two of them to step past and look at their John Doe victim. 

Except it's not a John Doe. 

“Call Liv,” Sonny manages to get out. 

“What-”

“It's him. It's Klaus.”

Sonny pulls up a chair next to the bed and starts pushing his fingers through what's left of Klaus’ hair, some of it shaved to make way for a bandage. There's so much to take in. The bruise on his cheek, his split lip, the bandage on his throat. Klaus has always been thin, but he looks skeletal in the hospital bed. So pale and tiny and hurt. All because Sonny couldn't protect him. But the most important thing is that he's still here, alive. 

As if on cue, Klaus’ eyes flutter open, green behind thick lashes void of their usual smudged liner. They’re unfocused and tired, but before long, Sonny knows he sees him. Klaus is here, he’s safe, he’s going to be okay. Soon their apartment will be cleared, so they can go home. Sleep under the covers, hold each other. Know that everything will be okay.

Klaus opens his mouth to speak, only to cough hard enough that his whole body shakes with it. Amanda hands him a styrofoam cup with a straw in it, probably from whenever Klaus has been awake before this. When Sonny holds it for him, still carding through Klaus’ hair, it fully hits him what he almost lost. 

“You’re safe now,” he says gently. “He can’t ever hurt you again.” 

Behind him, Amanda’s shoes tap away, likely to call Olivia and/or figure out how Klaus survived and found his way here. Those are just details. All that’s important is knowing the worst is over.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @shoelace-noose


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